Spire Christian Comics was an old comics company that, like many other publishers (including Marvel, in its early years), was distributed and printed by a larger company. Archie Comics, the publisher that got famous off of superheroes like The Shield and The Black Hood before changing their name and focusing on kiddie humor comics, distributed Spire’s material. Years before more mainstream efforts to sell Christianity to the younger folks, Spire was producing graphic adaptations of Adam & Eve and Noah’s Ark. But their most notable work is probably their participation in what may have been the first multimedia project: Hansi, the Girl Who Loved the Swastika. The story of Maria Anne Hirschmann, who went through Nazi and Communist occupations in Czechoslovakia but escaped to the West and became a born-again Christian, was adapted into numerous media, including a book, an LP, a comic book, and several other releases now lost to time. These were billed as patriotic Christian stories for a secular America, and they launched Maria Anne’s career as a public speaker, an author, and a major player in American fundamentalist Christianity.
3 responses
I am the proud owner of a copy of Hansi; I do not remember where or when I picked it up, but the indicia dates it 1976. It was drawn, quite professionally, by Al Hartley, son of Rep. Frederick Allan Hartley, Jr., co-author of the Taft-Hartley act.
Al Hartley was an ex-bomber pilot who drew “Patsy Walker” (written by Stan Lee) for Atlas Comics (precursor of Marvel) for 10 years, as well as the requisite jungle, horror and other genre material of comics’ Atom Age, an anomalous period when superheroes were out of fashion. Per Wikipedia, Hartely even drew the decorously naughty girly comic “The Adventures of Pussycat” (a knockoff of Playboy magazine’s “Little Annie Fanny”) before converting to Christianity in a big way in the late 60s.
The inside covers of Hansi indicate that Spire did a lot of conventional Christian book publishing as well. The front inside cover exhorts readers to “Keep the Hot Line Hot” through such titles as “Shaping History Through Prayer and Fasting” and Peter Marshall’s “Mr. Jones, Meet the Master.” The inside back cover titles are more colorful, including “Carmen” (“She was a drug addict, a vagrant, a prostitute, a delinquent, and an alcoholic–but most of all she was a confused girl who needed help.”) I’ll say.
Religious comic books are to me a fascinating genre of the medium, testimony to its power to persuade and inform beyond the constraints of literacy. Catholic comics are another subgenre distinct from Christian ones like Spire’s; having been educated Catholic I have some 1960s issues of the long-running “Treasure Chest of Fact & Fun,” distributed in the classrooms of Catholic schools, which mixed hagiography, educational documentary, funny animals, homemaking tips for girls and more into a dizzying gallimaufry, and featured some fine artists like Reed Crandall, Joe Sinnott and Dick Giordano.
“Converting to Christianity in a big way.” I like it. Because really, it’s the only way to convert to Christianity.
Nice research work dude. I wonder which I find more awesomely bad: Hansi or Stan Lee’s Hellcat. Probably Hellcat.
Funniest thing about Christian comics is how many of the artists were Jewish. There’s supposedly one or two of them in the dustbin of history that King Kirby himself pencilled.
Hellcat would totally kick Hansi’s ass in a fight. But then, of course, Hansi would forgive Hellcat and convince her to leave her husband, the Son of Satan, and devote her life to Christ.
Click here to subscribe today and leave your comment.